Washington talks a lot about protecting the public health of Americans, but what it rarely does is enforce the law. The previous administration illustrated that in action. While American parents worried about what their kids were buying at corner stores, President Joe Biden let dangerous illegal Chinese vaping products flood the country at historic levels.

Under Biden, the government replaced enforcement with warnings, with regulators issuing letters and shuffling paperwork instead of taking action. We’ve paid the price. Today, roughly 86 percent of e-cigarette sales in the United States are illegal, unregulated products, overwhelmingly manufactured in China with dubious quality and safety controls. The weak borders and hollow enforcement under the previous administration turned American neighborhoods into dumping grounds for products that never should have made it into the country.

China knows these products are dangerous. That is why they are banned there. Secretary Robert F. Kennedy spelled it out clearly. You will go to jail and worse in China if you try to sell these products to Chinese citizens. The same factories that cannot legally sell to their own people mass-produce flavored nicotine devices and ship them to American communities instead.

They are not shipping these products to help adults quit smoking. They are engineering candy-flavored devices designed to hook children, pushing them into neighborhoods, schools, and even near military bases. This is not negligence. It is exploitation.

President Donald Trump reversed course immediately. He used law enforcement to seize products and impose direct consequences on these illegal imports. Coordinated federal raids last year sent shockwaves through the illegal vape market. Federal agents conducted operations across six states, seizing more than $86 million worth of illegal vaping products.

At a single warehouse in Illinois, agents confiscated more than 600,000 illegal vapes with a retail value exceeding $14 million. The location was near schools and military installations, an unsettling reminder of how brazen these operations had become. Kennedy confirmed that roughly 90 percent of the seized products originated in China.

For the first time in years, illegal vape traffickers faced widespread disruption in their supply chains. The message was clear: easy access to these products does not make them legal. Convenience store shelves do not override federal law.

But then the pressure eased, and the traffickers got confident.

By the fall, Chinese vape exports surged again, reaching more than 32 million pounds worth in October — among the highest levels ever recorded. As they’ve done for years, Chinese exporters used smuggling tactics like breaking shipments into smaller products and mislabeling them to avoid customs inspections. The minute the administration relaxed its posture, the exports started again. 

The lesson of last year’s raids is simple — enforcement works. To actually get illegal vapes out of our communities, enforcement must continue. And not just for a month — every day.

Make no mistake: this is a national security threat and a direct harm to the American people.

We know that illegal Chinese vapes routinely exceed FDA nicotine limits, and sometimes even contain toxins like lead. Allowing this trade to flourish hurts Americans, weakens our border security, and rewards foreign adversaries who profit from American complacency.

President Trump has already closed key export loopholes and secured funding for enforcement. What we need now is sustained vigilance, including clamping down at the border, more frequent raids, and criminal penalties for the distributors and sellers of these illegal products. 

With the midterm elections approaching, it’s what voters want, too. A survey by one of the president’s main pollsters found that 70 percent of registered voters across 28 targeted swing districts back efforts to crack down on illegal vapes made in China. 

Under President Trump, America does not negotiate with poison pushers.

China tested America once and succeeded. This time, it should not mistake resolve for a bluff. In President Trump’s second term, foreign adversaries are learning again what happens when they defy the United States. If we finish the job, American communities will no longer pay the price for Washington’s past failures.

Aiden Buzzetti is the President of the Bull Moose Project, an organization advocating for populist conservatism in Washington, D.C.